This article is a place holder and needs someone to take it in hand and finish the first draft. If you would like to take this article in hand, leave a reply message below or contact Rock Currier via private message by clicking on the PM button next to my name at the top of the article.

Can you help make this a better article? What good localities have we missed? Can you supply pictures of better specimens than those we show here? Can you give us more and better information about the specimens from these localities? Can you supply better geological or historical information on these localities?

Below are some preliminary notes I have made about Albite. This entry and thread has been made as a place holder for information that you will hopefully contribute about Albite. It should be in no way be thought of as a claim I have staked out to write about this mineral, and in fact is an invitation for someone to step forward and create the article about this mineral. If you are so inclined and have questions about the format that such an article should have, go the The welcome topic at the top of the Best Minerals forum and read what has been posted there. Also take a look at some of the more mature articles that have already been written like Rhodochrosite, Adamite, Millerite etc. You will need also to pick out other images of Albite that will go into the article.

Albite Display collections.NaAlSi3O8Albite is the sodium end member of the plagioclase series, and is commonly found in pegmatites. Fine sharp crystals of albite can measure up to 20 cm. The variety of albite called cleavelandite typically has thin curved intergrown blades that are white, cream colored, tan or frequently a pale blue color. Individual crystals of this type of albite can measure up to 10 cm but are frequently less. Specimens of this type of albite are found as humps and pillows of intergrown crystals to more than a meter across. These specimens are often associated with quartz, tourmaline etc. There must be hundreds of albite localities, not only in Brazil but in most other pegmatites districts of the world. Because there are so many good localities for albite, I have placed below just a few of the better ones. Specimens that have good crystals of other associated minerals are usually more highly valued by collectors. All of the specimens pictured here were labeled albite, but I doubt if they had all been tested for potassium as the dominant metallic atom in their structure and if you want to point out to me in a condescending manner that one of them is really oligoclase I will grill you about how you know for sure and, if you have a good reason, I will make the correction. Some of the albite specimens pictured here, other than the Brazilian ones, are not especially valuable specimens and similar, though lesser quality could probably be bought for less than $100. They are included here to give you a feel for the many different kinds of albite specimens in the world. Albite and the feldspars in general are interesting minerals. It is a shame that more people do not collect them. But then if they did, the price on these usually cheap minerals would be a lot higher and then when I saw a good one I would have to pay more for it. Let me know I have missed your favorite albite locality and what makes it special. RHC.

AlbiteAustraliaMt. Palmer in central Australia has produced some interesting specimens as evidenced by the one shown here with sharp 3 cm cream colored crystals growing in a subparallel arrangement that makes for an attractive specimen.

AlbiteBrazilH Minas Gerais A & B.& C. Of all the localities in the world for just plain albite, probably Brazil holds the edge. The ones pictured below from an unknown locality, perhaps Capelinha are among the best, but larger and better specimens exist. Good specimens containing well formed bladed glassy white crystals of 10 to 20 cm are known. The best of them would certainly command a price of over a thousand dollars. Sometimes they are associated with beautiful terminated pink to red tourmaline crystals and rather than buy one of those you might decide that you would rather have a new house. Each of the three specimens pictured here would certainly bring several hundred dollars each.

AlbiteMinas Gerais, Capelinha. “Albite crystal groups reaching up to 25 cm in length are also very good and highly prized by mineral collectors. They are well faceted and sometimes skeletal.”11 Mineralogical Record, Vol. 5, 1974, p226.

AlbiteMinas Gerais, Nova Lima, Morro Velho. Another good locality for albite crystals is the gold mine at Morro Velho in Nova Lima county in the city of Nova Lima. Besides the Mina Grande mine at Nova Lima there are five other mines in the area that have nearly identical mineralization, but most of the good specimens come from Mina Grande. The albite crystals that the mine produces are sharp, glassy and tabular up to 5 cm and often fairly transparent. They are often strikingly associated with beautiful golden brown siderite crystals and other minerals. Good specimens, especially of the combination pieces will bring several hundred dollars.

AlbiteCanadaQuebec, St. Hilaire. has produced so many finer and more valuable specimens of other minerals that they make this specimen of tan, bladed curved albite crystals just a footnote. It is included here because there are many collectors that are interested in the minerals of St. Hilaire since it has produced so many mineral species. It this regard it is on par with a few other localities in the world that have produced large numbers of species; Franklin, New Jersey, USA and Långban, Sweden spring immediately to mind.

AlbiteOntario, Davis Hill and Silver Crater Mine. Canada has produced some monster albite crystals. Sharp albite-antiperthite crystals to 15 cm were produced at Davis hill along with the monster nepheline crystals. At the Silver Crater mine, albites up to 30 cm were found. These specimens are not particularly attractive.

AlbiteGreeceIsland of Crete. This small specimen of two tabular glassy albite crystals from Crete would be welcome in almost any mineral collection. It was in the collection of Arthur Montgomery.

AlbiteGreenlandNarsarsuk. This cluster of albite crystals is from the classical locality of Narsarsuk. It is associated with small aegirine crystals.

AlbiteItalyBaveno. Clusters of prismatic crystals, often pink in color are found here. They are particularly desirable when associated with fluorite, and babingtonite. The crystals are usually not more than 10 cm long.

AlbiteMexicoBaja California Norte, La Huerta/Ojos Negros, Mina la Verde. La Verde mine is a small locality that never produced much. It did produce this interesting specimen of pearly white curved intergrown albite crystals. This locality is better known for its big opaque blocky tan danburite crystals. The Mina la Verde is now just an overgrown hole in the ground about the size of a school bus and the prospects for future production are grim. This was one of Josephine Scripps, Baja localities and this specimen was in the Scripps collection. Al Ordway and Bob Bartsch did most of the digging at this locality; Josephine was a large not very robust lady who did very little digging, but she could play scrabble like a demon.Write something about Josephene Scrips under personalities.

AlbiteNorwayMorefjar. These almost blocky crystals in subparallel arrangement with mica were photographed in the British Museum of Natural History.

AlbitePoland“Prussian Silesia”, Striegau. Here is another specimen showing rather chunky albite crystals in subparallel growth. Sometimes the locality name on a label, like Prussian Silesia will give you information about how old the specimen is. In this instance it was collected and labeled before the countries we know today as Germany and Poland came into existence.

AlbiteSwedenTaberg. The locality near Taberg produced this interesting specimen that is in the British Museum of Natural History. The albite is associated with epidote & pink orthoclase.

AlbiteSwitzerlandZermatt. This cluster of angular blocky intergrown crystals is associated with quartz. This is an exceptional cluster of albite. As common as this mineral is, you see surprisingly few good ones in collections.

AlbiteRussiaKiryabinsk. This rather dingy looking chlorite stained albite specimen would not be high on anyone’s must have list, but it is well crystallized and will help you put other albite specimens in perspective.

AlbiteUnited StatesCalifornia, San Diego County, Mesa Grande, Himalaya Mine. This mine is better known for its tourmaline specimens but has produced some pretty specimens of albite. The specimen pictured here has curved thin bladed white crystals growing in subparallel form that have a touch of pale blue color and are associated with little purple lepidolite crystals. It is the association that really helps make this such a nice specimen. I suppose that such a pretty little modest specimen of lepidolite like this might bring two or three hundred dollars in today’s crazy market. But then as we get older, all markets look crazy.

AlbiteMontana, Whitehall. This specimen from Montana has prismatic looking albite crystals in a subparallel arrangement like albites from other localities.

A question: In the article, albite itself and its important variety cleavelandite are named, but shouldn't the variety "pericline" not treated in the same article? It is very caracteristic, and it is found in large XX (up to 20 cm in the Binn-valley). It is found throughout the Alps (Switzerland, France, Austria, Italy) but also in the USA (Acushnet), in Australia and even in Madagascar.

And also the "common" albite is found in a lot of places in Switzerland, like Piz Beverin in Graubunden.

I know, I should register as a member, buy a good camera and learn how it works, and take a lot of photo's from my collection and upload them, but that is for the future. Meanwhile, I enyoy the project, and try to help with ideas and comments.

Second I agree with you. The Albite article is not yet in the active construction stage, but I would appreciate if you would take the time to write up a fuller explanation of your concerns with examples (locality names) and place it here in this thread, and when the article is written I am sure it will be used or at the very least parts of it will be used. If you think your English might not be up to the task, don't worry about that. I or someone else can clean it up a little if necessary. Do you specialize in albite? I don't know all that much about it and we could use some help here. There is a retired local collector and his wife that are currently going through all the albites here on mindat and compiling a lits of decent localities and the links to images of specimens from those localities.

The Brown Derby Mine in Colorado still has huge amounts of Cleavelandite, in parallel and sub-parallel straight and curved crystalline masses. It is associated with a host of minerals, stibiotantalite, microlite, monazite, topaz, to name a few, although predominately with lepidolite.

I have had this material analyzed for trace elements, in order to determine the cause of the unusual coloration; the results from Western Environmental Testing Laboratory in Sparks, Nevada revealed that the coloration is due to traces of iron. Otherwise, the albite is essentially pure, with no trace of calcium (ab100 an0); analysis by Dr. Paul Miranda at the Center for Advaned Mineral processing (CAMP) at Montana Tech.

Chris

William C. (CHRIS) van Laer: "I'm using the chicken to measure it..."

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2010 06:18PM by William C. van Laer.

Jim, Do you have any pictures of good specimens of albite from the Brown Derby that you can upload? Specimens showing associations are nice.

William. Looks like a keeper and should definitely find a place in the article when it is written. What can you tell us about the albite specimens from this locality? How many similar specimens have been found? When. Are they still coming out? Any other associated species? etc.

1) In this part of the text "All of the specimens pictured here were labeled albite, but I doubt if they had all been tested for potassium as the dominant metallic atom in their structure and if you want to point out to me in a condescending manner that one of them is really oligoclase I will grill you about how you know for sure and, if you have a good reason, I will make the correction." I suppose POTASSIUM is to be replaced by SODIUM?

2) I'll try to write some additions for the article. Albite is not my primary intrest, but I have a (rather complete) "subcollection" of feldspars.

3) And talking of albite and oligoclase, is this entry about albite sensu stricto (Na between 100 and 90%) or about albite sensu largo (the half of the plagioclase series between 100 and 50% Na)? May be, there can come an entry about the plagioclases in general, where the occasional good finds of lesser known plagioclases are treated, like peristerite or the gemmy bytownite from Mexico? And beside that, this entry about albite ss and one about the other famous plagioclase labradorite?

As far as the albite article is concerned, I don't really know what direction to take with it. I have not even actively started to write the article and keep hoping that someone more knowledgeable than myself will step up and write the thing. The first thing that needs to be done is to select all the good images on mindat and then put them in order by country, state, etc. But, your comment about "thats what is on the labels" and are they really all albite? and what is the cutoff for calling them albite and almost certainly, few of them have really been tested. All these things should be talked about in the introduction to the article among other things. This is a problem similar to many other groups of minerals and it should not be brushed under the table. I have no desire to impose any one set of standards on what is or is not albite. I would really like to present two or three points of view to present to the reader and let them make up their own mind as to what they want to consider to be albite.

I had a big rare species collection before I gave it to the University of Arizona, but just how many of them are correctly labeled I don't know,(I hope most of them) but I know I am deluding myself if I take all the labels at face value. It is the same with albite and other minerals. We just do the best we can and the good thing about this kind of format, is that the article(s) can be continually updated as errors are discovered, nomenclature changes or locality names change.

Would you like to write up something using our point of view as to exactly what albite is or isn't, its varieties and your view of what percentage of the albite images on mindat are really albite? That would be a good place to start with the article. It sounds like you know more about it than I do. I really don't really know enough mineralogy to write about many of the minerals and sometimes only do so because somebody needs to write something about the specimens in general as I have discussed in the introduction. We spend or lives learning about specimens, how good they are , their value, when they were found, how many etc. and most of this knowledge dies with collectors and of often never written down or if it is it is scattered throughout the literature so thoroughly that it is difficult or impossible to find. I would like to eventually change all that.

@ Erik and Rock .......I recently found some interesting Rutile included Albites in Bertrix, 0,5 cm max for the crystals so that's pretty OK for Belgium......one piece has an area of about 4x6cm covered with them together with rutilated quartz crystals.

Can you help make this a better article? What good localities have we missed? Can you supply pictures of better specimens than those we show here? Can you give us more and better information about the specimens from these localities? Can you supply better geological or historical information on these localities? After each set of pictures there should be some descriptive text. If none appears it means that we need someone to tell us about the specimens from that locality and something about the geology of the occurrence.

That looks pretty good. If there are no better images available for the first two localities I would loose the first two localities and their images all together. The first is marginal because it is not a whole specimen image and the second is so poorly crystallized that I don't think it rates a spot. Perhaps some one will check in that knows those localities better and can advise us if there are better specimens available from those localities and perhaps provide a picture or two of superior quality and tell us something about the albite from those two localities. If not I would recommend taking them out. Albite is a common mineral and our standards for inclusion here have to be high if we are not to be swamped with pictures and entries. You have one space between data blocks and there should be two. Its starting to look good.

In the alpine type Quartz veins south of Bertrix Albite is quite a common mineral. Quite rare however are the finds of nice clear Albite crystals that are included with Rutile. The associated minerals in these veins include besides Albite (rutilated) Quartz, Anatase, Titanite, Xenotyme-(Y), Chlorite, Apatite and Calcite.

Rock:The blue cleavelandite find is not the first for the Boulder Batholith of Montana; I found similar material back in 1979:http://www.mindat.org/photo-166960.html. The current find, however, is far more spectacular, but since it's not my discovery, I can only report what I am currently informed about. The pocket yielded only a small amount of material, with associated minerals smoky quartz, microcline (white), spessartine, and rutilated smoky quartz (!) Little rutilated quartz has been found in the Boulder Batholith, but it is not unknown. Currently I have bought 22 specimens, all miniatures to small cabinet size, and have sold two and a third is currently at Montana Tech being analyzed for trace elements. One is slated for trade in Portugal. The finder may have a few more for sale; I am trying to acquire one with the three main minerals present (cleavelandite, smoky quartz, and microcline...makes an exceptionally aesthetic specimen!) The finder also says that besides being frozen now, the pocket has been cleaned out, but that doesn't necessarily mean there will be no more material...the pegmatite I worked in 1979 yielded a series of interconnected pockets, all with blue albite and blue cleavelandite.

I am currently writing an update on the Boulder Batholith pegmatites; still a lot of work to go before completion. I hope this will clearly identify most of the known localities and areas for the mindat database.

Also, toFred and Linda Elsnau: the specimen you have from the Fujian Province, China, labelled "albite" is actually microcline: note that all the crystals are Baveno twins, and albite twins according to the pericline law on 010, not 021. Sometimes albite will at least partially replace the microcline, but it should be indicated as a pseudomorph after microcline.

Rock. I know Rutherford Mine, Amelia Co. VA, USA produced decent specimens of Cleavlandite. These would often enough be found in many older east coast US collections.

Unfortunately I have only this modest piece I got from Larry Conklin some years ago, but your welcome to use this image as a placeholder for now if you like. Certainly someone here who collects more specifically for Virginia localities would have a better piece to photograph, and hopefully could provide some info/history along with it.

First, perhaps some sort of introduction to the feldspar series is in order. Albite is just one end-member of a solid-solution series with Ca, Na, and K-rich end-members. Then there is the issue of how to deal with the Na-Ca portion of the series, traditionally known as the plagioclase series, incorporating the minerals (from Na-donimant to Ca dominant) albite, oligioclase, andesine, labradorite, bytownite, and anorthite. Generations of geologists (including yours truly) have grown up and old using this scheme to classify igneous rocks. The IMA, in it's infinite wisdom, has recently thrown this all out and now just recognized the two end-members, albite and anorthite. If you are to follow the current "official" scheme, then albite must also include the minerals formerly called oligioclase and andesine. In order to truly know which member of the plagioclase series one is dealing with, one must either have some facility with optical mineralogy or access to an electron microprobe in order to determine the Na:Ca ratio of the crystal in question. In the "traditional" sense, albite is defined as a Na-dominant feldspar with no more than 10% substitution of Ca for Na. The IMA scheme allows up to 50%. What we call "cleavelandite" is a platey habit of albite that occurs when the composition is near pure Na end-member.

Second, there are two main geological environments that will produce albite in sufficiently well-crystallized specimens to interest collectors. The cleavelandite variety, well known to most collectors is typical of granitic pegmatites. The peristerite and pericline habits are typical of alpine metamorphic-type deposits, and good specimens have come from numerous locations in the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps, as well as Capelinha, Brazil. Interestingly, many of the pegmatites in the Northern Areas of Pakistan produce a blocky habit albite, which is easily confused with microcline in hand specimen.

Third, the photo above of a feldspar from Fujian, China looks like a baveno-twinned microcline, not albite.

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